Message-draky

Terminology

Singular: Drak

Male: Cob, wyrm

Female: Wing, serpent

Immature: Chick

Collective: (Nesting) castle [A castle of message-draky], colony

Collective: (All other times, esp. when migrating) Soaring [A soaring of message-draky]

Physical Description

Message-draky physically resemble tiny dragons, the largest being no more than three human hand-spans from nose to tail. They typically stand about eight inches at the shoulder, although specimens may be as small as six inches, with a neck proportionally one-third of that length--the average draky is eighteen inches long and eleven inches high when holding its neck vertically. They are winged and four-limbed, and prefer to nest on cliffs, rocky outcroppings, and buildings.

Message-draky are not scaled, furred, or feathered; their leathery skin is brightly colored, often red, blue, or green. Their wings are webbed, the webbing frequently a very different color from the rest of their body. A soaring of draky is a singularly spectacular sight, a swirling mass of vaguely hallucinogenic colors. Their vibrant pigments serve as a false warning of poison to many species; draky are indeed edible, although they are so small and difficult to catch as to make this an unproductive venture.

Male message-draky, the smaller of the sexes, possess a flamboyant webbed crest running from the base of their spine to their tail, where it flares into a fan. This crest is usually colored the same as the wing-webbing, although tricolored specimens have been observed. During the spring mating season, the crest brightens in color and gains a metallic sheen; young males display with complex aerial acrobatics. Females will choose a mate who impresses them with brightness of color or agility, and remain with that mate for life.

It is not unknown, or even uncommon, for two male or two female draky to pair and raise adopted eggs from other pairs. These homosexual pairs also remain together for life, and protect their adoptive chicks like any biological parents. In these cases, often a young female will display along with the males, or a male will choose a mate from the prospective partners. Some are rejected, of course, but they seem to have a curious instinct about which draky will be accepting of their advances (one which would spare sentients much grief, should they possess it).

Temperament

Message-draky are playful, affectionate creatures, similar to parrots in their intelligence and temperament. They fear almost nothing, and will gamely attempt anything asked of them--domesticated draky have been known to survive severe injuries, even loss of limbs, with very little change in temperament. For these traits, as well as the messenger ability for which they have been named, many draky have been domesticated. In captivity they attach themselves to one person for the duration of their lifespan, and must be raised from the egg in order to be truly tame--although wild draky can be captured, they will remain hostile to sentients. Should a draky's master die before the draky's life-span is up, that draky will refuse to eat or drink, starving itself, until it dies. In the wild, this affection is directed towards a draky's chosen mate.

Draky are intensely social creatures. In the wild, they live in soarings frequently numbered in the hundreds, and form deep and long-lasting social bonds. These bonds are strongest within family groups, but extra-familial relations are common and serve in part to keep soarings together. Draky are Curiously, sexual relations outside mated pairs occur so rarely as to be almost totally unknown; the cause of this is mysterious, but nonetheless draky display an unshakable loyalty towards their chosen mates. Being social creatures, draky are unabashedly loud, with an extraordinary range of vocalizations. It is unknown whether they have any kind of sophisticated language to match this vocabulary, but as a social species the possibility is not unlikely.

Draky display an extraordinary ability to remember and recognize faces; this is an evolutionary by-product of their social nature. Individual draky have been shown to recognize on sight up to one hundred and fifty separate draky, and up to fifty different humans. No experimentation has been done on how this memory is affected by adding different sentient species into the mix--draky may be more easily able to distinguish between draconian than humanoid species--but it is a line of inquiry that should surely be followed. More astonishingly, draky can remember faces for at least eight years after last seeing the individual. During migrations, if a parent draky should meet one of their offspring, they will greet the child enthusiastically, a sentiment usually reciprocated--despite not having seen the offspring for years.

Although small and not significantly dangerous, draky are fiercely protective of those they consider to be under their protection. This includes their mate, their chicks, and in domestic specimens, their master. Message-draky will fight anything, no matter how formidable, if one of these is threatened, and know no fear. The berserker rage of this pint-sized dragons is an amazing thing, provided you are not on the receiving end. Although there are no recorded cases of sentients being killed by a single draky, one is quite capable of blinding a humanoid. When a soaring becomes aggressive, the result can be truly frightening; not unlike piranhas, their concentrated attacks are known to strip much larger creatures to the bone.

Diet

Message-draky are small predators, and are versatile in their eating habits. They will happily scavenge off of larger predators, even going so far as to steal fresh prey out of a distracted predator's claws or talons. This may result in the draky's messy end, but it's a gamble that pays off if they can manage it. Draky have even been known to cooperate in such ventures, with one (usually the male) distracting the larger predator while the female acts as the thief. They seem to take a strange enjoyment from this kind of risk,

Usually, though, draky hunt smaller prey. Cooperatively, a draky pair can take down larger birds such as turkeys and pheasants, as well as--if they're lucky--foxes, weasels, and occasionally fawns. This large prey is generally limited to nesting season, when draky are desperate to feed their new-hatched chicks as well as themselves; during the rest of the year, they are content to hunt insects, small rodents, and songbirds. Although message-draky can digest vegetable matter, in the wild they prefer not to; however, it is recommended that domesticated draky have an omnivorous diet. Some domesticated draky show a fondness for fruit and, more rarely, confectionary; in the wild, only tropical draky display this propensity, and it is much less common. Much more common is a "salt tooth", so to speak--many draky love the taste of salt, for reasons unknown.

Although scavengers in the wild, domestic draky who have been raised on live prey will often refuse to eat meat which they have not killed themselves. This works both ways: domestic draky who have been raised on dead meat will not know what to do with a live mouse or rat, "playing" with the terrified creature like a cat.

Habitat

Message-draky are very rarely found in cold climates. Although warm-blooded, their small size and the absence of fur or feather covering means that they do not adapt to cold well. Domesticated draky will willingly fly where their masters order them, or follow them wherever their travels may take them, but they chill easily and, if exposed for cold for too long, will enter into a state like hibernation. A hibernating draky must be warmed quickly, else it will succumb to hypothermia and die.

Message-draky are almost obscenely common, frequently regarded as pests. They favor temperate and tropical climates, where castles can be found roosting on cliff faces and mountainsides. They will occasionally take up residence in forests, although rocky outcroppings are their preferred habitat. Rural communities tend to look on them more favorably, as a castle of draky will prey on rats, crows, and other crop-eating pests.

Recently, they have begun moving into urban areas, where castles will roost on buildings like garish, noisy gargoyles. Fortunately, their diurnal nature means that they are not too disruptive at night, and colonies on the outskirts even serve to warn of invaders. Even so, temperate city-dwellers look forward to the winter months, when the soarings of draky will migrate south.

Special Abilities

Message-draky are known for their mimicking abilities. They are capable of memorizing long messages and repeating them in the voice of the one who told them the message. Especially intelligent specimens have been known to learn speech with roughly the same fluency as a small human child.

Message-draky also possess a singular ability to track. Once they have met a person, they retain the ability to find that person again. This ability has nothing to do with scent; it is believed that they follow a person's magical signature. They may be able to find a person they have never met if given an item that has part of that person's essence on it--clothing is common, as well as sentimental trinkets. This makes them invaluable in finding missing persons, besides their obvious use as messengers. The ability extends to other draky and animals, although it is useless unless the draky has met that particular specimen before.

Message-draky possess no significant poison, venom, or offensive magical abilities.

Life Cycle

Domesticated message-draky typically live for twenty to thirty years. This span is halved in the wild; a wild draky is lucky to reach fifteen years. Message-draky breeding season is in the spring, or, in tropical climates, at the beginning of the nesting season. Males rise in display at the first sign of new leaves, a spectacular display of color and acrobatics. Shortly after, new couples will form. These couples will remain together for the remainder of their lifespans.

Like many birds of prey, message-draky mate in midair. The actual act of mating is very brief; also like most avians, neither sex has external genitals. Couples usually mate only once during the breeding season, and females lay clutches of four to six eggs within two weeks of a successful mating. Eggs are dull brown and grey, vaguely conic in shape. They blend in exceptionally well with the stony habitats favored by message-draky; the conic shape means that if pushed, the eggs roll in a tight circle, rather than off the edge of a cliff (or building). Eggs typically hatch within six weeks.

A newly hatched chick is dull brown in color. It is nearly impossible to tell one chick from another, or even to distinguish a chick's gender--the garish draky coloring develops gradually, and the distinctive cob's crest only develops once a chick reaches sexual maturity. This is where the draky tracking ability comes in: because of their locative instinct, a draky can find its own nest and chicks out of hundreds or thousands of nearly-identical nests and chicks. Chicks hatch with all senses fully functional, although their underdeveloped limbs mean that they are unable to fly, walk, or climb on their own. Within six weeks, a chick can walk and climb, and many scramble recklessly over their cliffside homes. It would seem that they should all fall to their deaths, but draky are naturally agile climbers, and most chicks survive.

Chicks learn to hunt by chasing grasshoppers and insects; their parents teach them little. Groups of chicks will play daring games of chasing and hiding along the cliffs, which become even more complex after four months, when their wings are strong enough to fly. Chicks will remain with their parents for two years, or four migrations. In their third year, adolescent wings leave their flocks to seek a mate, taking about one to two years to find a new soaring. Their mate will come from within this soaring, and their cob chicks will stay with it. Although it is extremely rare for mated pairs to change soarings, and almost never intentionally, it is not unknown for soarings to join up during migration, and in the confusion when they separate, pairs may inadvertently join the wrong soaring. Such pairs are never quite as happy in their new soaring, but so long as they are not separated from each other, they will at least coexist peacefully with their new nest-neighbors.

Social Structure

Message-draky live in groups, known as soarings when in flight, especially when migrating, and castles when nesting. Soarings may contain anywhere from ten to one hundred mating pairs, and during migration may double or triple in size, as they merge with other soarings. Senior pairs are accepted as more dominant, and are the first to claim favorable nesting spots. Pairs hunt together, taking mostly birds and rodents. They will occasionally come into conflict with other flighted predators; not being particularly territorial or aggressive, hunting pairs will usually give the other creature right of way, unless it should try to treat them as prey.

There is very little contest over ranking. The draky are amiable creatures by nature, and not disposed to conflict within the species. Lower-ranking draky are usually content to wait until the higher-ranking pairs die or are killed naturally; it is extremely rare for the peaceful draky to kill each other.

Unfortunately, their extremely social nature makes message-draky colonies extremely susceptible to disease. In domesticated castles, it is a constant struggle to keep every draky healthy, as a single infected draky could spread an epidemic throughout the entire group. Message-draky rarely succumb to disease as a result of millenia of natural selection, but when they do, there are very few survivors.